What has happened to society?

[jgilbert]

If you were going to the movies in the 30's and 40's would you not want to forget how hard your daily life was? Do you believe all of America dressed for dinner?

Warbird does have a point about shifting norms. Some for the good and some not so good.

My dress code in school was jeans, Most lived on farms and had a list of chores to do before or after school. And the girls hated wearing dresses in the winter, just too cold for them!

I would like to think the world then was like a Norman Rockwell painting, however I bet it was not.

 

[Baron Kurtz]

I agree with your premise, however you would have to admit there was a norm then and a norm now that are different wouldn't you. There are always exceptions in any given case. It does not mean the norm is changed due to those exceptions.

I do agree that there are norms in both eras and that they are different. Is the suggestion also that the norms of the 1950s were the same as the norms of the 1930s? And that things got "bad" around, oh, let's say, 1968 (just plucking a random date out of the aether). With this, I cannot agree.

Where my view diverges to the greatest extent is in the judgements one makes based upon this premise. There is a terrible tendency to look back and see everything - and particularly the people - as nicer, more civilised, all around better than the current situation.

And i certainly won't agree that the norm today is to not care how you look. Vanity is vanity. We all want to look our best. We may disagree as to what that entails. But to suggest that *because* someone dresses in a manner in which we might consider is "not their best", they therefore don't care how they look, is absurd.

bk

 

[kokopelli]

Wow

I've been busy lately and have not spent a lot of time here. One thing.. This thread went to Hades "like very fast"! I'm not sure where to start here or to just close the browser.. Ron

 

[Foofoogal]

IMHO. 2 Things.

1. Taking away the blue law.
2. Taking away prayer in school.

 

[Baron Kurtz]

Went to Hades? Seems relatively civil debate to me. Disagreement is healthy.

bk

 

[Baron Kurtz]

1. Taking away the blue law.

Was no-one allowed to wear blue? [huh]

bk

 

[warbird]

I do agree that there are norms in both eras and that they are different. Is the suggestion also that the norms of the 1950s were the same as the norms of the 1930s? And that things got "bad" around, oh, let's say, 1968 (just plucking a random date out of the aether). With this, I cannot agree.

Where my view diverges to the greatest extent is in the judgements one makes based upon this premise. There is a terrible tendency to look back and see everything - and particularly the people - as nicer, more civilised, all around better than the current situation.

And i certainly won't agree that the norm today is to not care how you look. Vanity is vanity. We all want to look our best. We may disagree as to what that entails. But to suggest that *because* someone dresses in a manner in which we might consider is "not their best", they therefore don't care how they look, is absurd.

bk

BK, I certainly didn't and I don't think anyone else said things went bad around 68 or at any particular date. I tend to think it was many small changes with no one date and time or cause, a a societal shift simply is what it is, sometimes it's hard to pinpoint.. You make an excellent point though about vanity. You may well be right. The norms for dressing vainly today are just far different, but perhaps they do indeed dress with care in mind. The care to dress like a street walker, the MTV dress ideal or something. I had not really thought about that, but perhaps you are right.

And I certainly agree with you that too many people have very very skewed views of what the golden era or the first half of the 20th century or however you want to put it was in reality. I grew up with an old family, I hold no illusions whatsoever. My point was really to the average and to the difference between then and now. Obviously there are always exceptions and there is really averages that are different between cities and rural etc. But I think we can agree that there has been a sgift and my point is that the shift in the way we dress on the whole and our manners are not as good as they once were and appear to be getting worse if you visit local high schools.

 

[AdmiralTofu]

Was no-one allowed to wear blue? [huh]

bk

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_law

 

[Foofoogal]

In America we had what was called the Blue Law which helped observe a day or rest and/or religion.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_law

Trade was not allowed. Time spent with family.
The question was what has happened to society and the more I think about it the blue law taken away was the outcome we have now.
It helped give honor where honor was due. IMHO.
People are now like hamsters on treadmills and don't even take time to think about where they are.

 

[warbird]

Was no-one allowed to wear blue? [huh]

bk

Blue laws had to do with many things, they were mainly to do with religion (Sunday norms), sexual practices and alcohol. Many of those laws are still on the books actually, they just aren't enforced. Here in my state and some would disagree with me, but I think our alcohol laws suck. You still can't buy wine in the grocery stores and only about 10 years ago did they change the law that you can't buy beer on Sunday before 12.

But I digress this really has nothing to do with manners and dress differences.

 

[Hemingway Jones]

Was no-one allowed to wear blue? [huh]

bk

I'm not sure if you were joking or not, but, here in the US "Blue Laws" were laws that restricted certain behaviors.

For instance, Boston had a blue law on the books that liquor stores could not open on Sundays. And when did they repeal it? About two or three years ago!

Our bars still close at 1 AM.

Now back to your regularly scheduled civil debate.

 

[dhermann1]

Blue laws were laws in the US which required businesses to close on Sundays, generally speaking. In other words, legal enforcement of the sabbath.
Another aspect not touched on yet is the change in the class structure of our society. 100 years ago the concept of "respectability" was much more rigidly enforced. There was a recognized aristocracy, generally coinciding with wealth, but not entirely by any means. People bowed to people of higher social status. A lot of what we call traditional manners comes from this. We now have a much more egalitarian society. A lot of people (wrongly) associate more courtly manners with taking a subserviant social pose. "How do you do, sir" becomes "Hey, man, how ya doin'?"
Speaking of poor little Brittney, I don't think you can blame "the media" for her self destructiveness. As disgusting as they are, they merely exploit it. Actors and singers have been drinking and drugging themselves to death for centuries. It comes with the territory. Check out Marilyn Miller, for starters.
I also suspect that the confused state of manners today at least in part derives from the great variety of ethnic groups that are mixing in many urban localities. People bring their old traditions with them, but are not sure how to behave in this new world. Getting to know each other in a very intimidating environment tends to make people more reserved with each other, which can easily be interpreted as hostility, when in fact it's not.

 

[dakotanorth]

The downfall of society?

I have to admit, I didn't read every post, so I may be out of sequence with the general discussion.
I don't believe people, en masse, wore tails for lunch, dinner jackets for dinner, white gloves when they rode the bus BUT leather gloves when they drove, etc etc. Marketing has been around since the dawn of the industrial revolution- "Hey, buy this! We make it, we sell it for a profit, here's why you should buy one!"
HOWEVER, with that said, I do believe things have declined over the decades. True, women have fought for equality, and gained it, but generations are being tricked into giving it up- porn stars are now "acceptable", girls go to school with thongs hanging out of their pants, the portrayal of men vs women on TV is a huge discrepancy (look at Drew Carey show or King of Queens). It shifts our perception of reality, and feeds our insecurities.
I know there's another example involving racial minorities, but I can't go into it- too "hot".
In general though, most people agree there is a "Dumbing Down" of America. Throughout the 40's-60's, America _WAS_ the greatest country, but we became arrogant. It reminds me of the 40-yr-old man who still talks about high school football; yes you scored 4 touchdowns, but that was DECADES ago. We are still fed this belief though- whatever we make MUST be better b/c it's new, right? IF it's new, it's better. Change is good! America has the best ideas- we're constantly changing things, making them bigger, better, faster, stronger. Cash or charge?

 

[kokopelli]

Possibly, possibly not.

First it's society, then women, then hippies, then blue laws, then prayer, what next? I believe it was kids... If everyone had stopped having kids in the 20's none of this would have happened:eusa_doh: Ron

Went to Hades? Seems relatively civil debate to me. Disagreement is healthy.

bk

 

[pigeon toe]

Ahem Did you read my first post? Did you see the way I composed my second post? Apparently not.

I didn't know being patronizing was considered good manners. Let's just agree to disagree.

 

[warbird]

Blue laws were laws in the US which required businesses to close on Sundays, generally speaking. In other words, legal enforcement of the sabbath.
Another aspect not touched on yet is the change in the class structure of our society. 100 years ago the concept of "respectability" was much more rigidly enforced. There was a recognized aristocracy, generally coinciding with wealth, but not entirely by any means. People bowed to people of higher social status. A lot of what we call traditional manners comes from this. We now have a much more egalitarian society. A lot of people (wrongly) associate more courtly manners with taking a subserviant social pose. "How do you do, sir" becomes "Hey, man, how ya doin'?"
Speaking of poor little Brittney, I don't think you can blame "the media" for her self destructiveness. As disgusting as they are, they merely exploit it. Actors and singers have been drinking and drugging themselves to death for centuries. It comes with the territory. Check out Marilyn Miller, for starters.
I also suspect that the confused state of manners today at least in part derives from the great variety of ethnic groups that are mixing in many urban localities. People bring their old traditions with them, but are not sure how to behave in this new world. Getting to know each other in a very intimidating environment tends to make people more reserved with each other, which can easily be interpreted as hostility, when in fact it's not.

I like your point of ethnic mixes, but I'm not sure I buy it. For one thing we had many more immigrants flooding into cities from the last half of the 19th to the mid 20th century. Yet we had the same basic structure of norms. Now today maybe we have more ethnicities that are more different than the differences between western and eastern Europe of that time. I don't know that answer.

Also, this to me doesn't seem to be a shift particular to the US. I've seen women in Eastern Europe dress like they are heading to the brothel for everyday dress and men wearing essentially the same shab they do here. Maybe the technology coupled with access all over the world to the MTV culture helped make that change. Again, I don't know the answer.

 

[warbird]

I didn't know being patronizing was considered good manners. Let's just agree to disagree.

My point was that you misread my posts, to begin with. You chastised me based on a false reading of what I said, or at least not reading where I made the point clear that I was a bit tongue in cheek. I certainly did not patronize you. My point was to go back and re-read what I said and maybe you would catch the subtleties of what I said. It is not always easy to be a bit sarcastic in print.

 

[dhermann1]

Yeah, that last point was . . errr . . . . questionable at best. But sometimes I find the interaction among different ethnic groups here in New York to show a lot of nervousness and uncertainty, to say the least. Anyhoo, just a thought.

 

[Mike K.]

The grass is always greener...until you start munchin' on it.

In the Golden Era there were probably those who looked at bygone days and wondered what happened to society in the 1930s & 40s.

Today we look at bygone days and wonder what's become of our society.

How much do want to bet that our grandchildren will someday look upon our present society with nostalgic eyes and dream about the "good 'ol days" of the early 21st century?

 

[LadyStardust]

IMHO. 2 Things.

1. Taking away the blue law.
2. Taking away prayer in school.

I may be mis-interpreting here, and apologies if it is so, but are you trying to imply that society would still be hunky dory if only prayer was still allowed and religion was prevalent everywhere? I'm sure I'm not the only agnostic around here, and I bet there are more than a few atheists around here too, and I can't help but be a mite offended by your suggestions. Do you honestly equate children/people who don't pray as automatically lesser beings and part of the contribution of the "fall" of society? I'm not going to go into a long-winded rebuttal of this, I'll just state my opinion that that is a very backward view to have. I have met some of the nastiest people who are die-hard Christians (pray about everything, go to Church everyday, insert religion into EVERYTHING) and I have met lifelong atheists who are polite, well-spoken, wonderful people. Of course the alternate can also be true. I think what I'm trying to say is that religion does not always make one a paragon in terms of perfect behavior/personality, just as lack of religion does not make a disgusting heathen who ruins society.